Editorial: Campaign finance reform - less talk, more action

7:38 PM,
Jun. 10, 2013

State Sen. Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, center left, is shown in this April 2 courtroom sketch standing in federal court next to his attorney Gerald Shargel in White Plains. Smith was arrested along with five other politicians in an alleged plot to pay tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to GOP bosses to let him run for mayor of New York City as a Republican. Clockwise from left are Bronx County Republican Party Chairman Joseph 'Jay' Savino; his attorney Kevin B. Faga; Smith; Shargel; Spring Valley Mayor Noramie Jasmin; and Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Bloom.

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| A Journal News editorial

With just days left in a legislative session too often transfixed by scandal and corruption, there has been plenty of talk, but no action, on campaign finance reform - seen as a tool for bringing about fairer elections. Despite much grandstanding and fist-shaking, action has been elusive in the Senate. Republican co-leadership, invested in the status quo, has stifled the possibility of a vote on the popular legislation. A small coalition of Senate Democrats has been no help, too.

Members of the Independent Democratic Conference, which shares Senate power with the GOP, contend they are in ...